


That Boy is a Monster

by frozenfoxfire (dadcastellanos)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Beating, Fights, Jotunn!Loki, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:03:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadcastellanos/pseuds/frozenfoxfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is less than thrilled when Loki shows him his Jotun form. It eats away at Loki until he snaps.</p><p>Mentions of Nick Fury, Bruce Banner, and Natasha//Clint. Background plot based on the Civil War arc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Boy is a Monster

**Author's Note:**

> based on a prompt found @ tumblr by anotherjourneybytrain that kind of got ridiculously out of hand once an anon suggested adding in Civil War plotpoints. 
> 
> be aware of a vivid, vicious, horrible beating and unstable Loki. I was NOT kind this time around.
> 
> suggested listening music: A Sea Chanty of Sorts by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's; Zephyrus by Bloc Party; Eyes Wide Open by Gotye.

It's the sudden switch in his eyes, and Loki's heart drops, deep into the pit of his stomach.

"What.." Tony starts uneasily, and Loki can practically hear his mind screaming _what are you_ as he struggles with his words, "..happened?"

"This is who I am," Loki replies, voice quiet, wavering, pained. His eyes are half open, stung by the bright lights in the lab, and he wishes he could get them to dim, or disappear. He wishes he would disappear. He could, but it's too late, now. "This.. is the body of a Jotun."

"Oh." Tony's reply is almost choked with uncertainty. He sounds lost. He looks lost. His face is empty, but his eyes are wide and full of expression - surprise, confusion. Dread. Fear.

The lab is silent. Tony looks from him to the floor and back again, eyes scouring his blue skin, the soft lines tracing his body, his bright red eyes. Loki feels empty. 

"How.." He's grappling for words again. _Did this happen. Do you change back_. He can't find the words, and changes tack. "What happened?" he reiterates, lamely, looking away and turning partially away from Loki, moving some of the tools on the counter he's standing at.

"I.. wanted to show you," Loki murmurs, forcing his voice above a whisper. "You seemed interested.."

"Oh," Tony says again, and he sounds guilty. Some hideous voice in Loki hisses at him. Let him be guilty. Suffer in the knowledge you're exactly as I expected you to be. "Is there a way to change back?"

"Yes," Loki replies evenly, and he marvels at his own ability not to jerk from disappointed to depressed to righteously furious openly. He's surprised he hasn't flung the stool directly beside him at Tony, surprised he hasn't leapt at the man and bashed his stupid fucking head in. He wants to watch the blood ooze out of Tony's skull. He wants to rip the throat out of his body with his bare hands. "Do you want me to?"

"No...t if you don't want to," Tony says, and isn't looking up at him. He's focusing on nothing, the empty spaces between the tools on the counter, the half-finished repulsor glove he'd been working on minutes before. "Do what you want, baby," his words say, but his heart isn't in it, Loki can tell. He's conflicted. He's uneasy. He feels awkward. Put upon. _Bastard. Bastard!_

It's Loki's turn to be at a loss for words. He looks down at his hands, long white nails and blue skin and those stupid fucking lines. It's not him. It doesn't feel like him. He feels dirty, ugly, horrible. He feels like a monster. He opens and closes his mouth repeatedly, but comes up short. 

"You okay?" Tony asks, and Loki snorts.

"Do I look to be?" Loki retorts, voice wicked and ugly.

"You don't look to not be," Tony replies without looking over.

Loki's filled with a sudden, burning need to make Tony see him, to _force Tony to see him_ , and he strides across the lab, placing a hand on Tony's shoulder. The second his cold, tough skin touches Tony's warm, pliable bare shoulder, Tony jumps, twitching away. Loki holds fast, his fingernails digging into Tony's skin ever so slightly. He can hear the man's breath hiss as he suddenly gasps, just under his breath.

"Look again," he snarls, red eyes glowering into Tony's wide, scared brown ones. "Look at me and tell me what you see."

The silence between them is electric. Tony can't find a single word to save himself. He looks into Loki's eyes, between them, down his face, but finds nothing to say. Instead he wrenches his shoulder away, looking down. "I see _you_ ," he says quietly.

"Tell me what you truly see. Tell me the words hiding on the tip of your tongue." _Before I rip it from your lips._

JARVIS interrupts, a smooth English voice cutting in just as Tony opens his mouth to speak. " _Sir? The Senate has requested your presence once again. I have been told to divulge that they've discussed several new clauses on the Superhuman Registration Act and they insist your involvement is no less than absolutely necessary._ " 

"Tell them I'm on my way," Tony replies, and snatches his bracelets off the table, walking briskly towards the elevator. "I'll be back," he calls, an afterthought, just as the elevator doors close.

Loki's left alone in the lab, breathing hard, his red eyes fiercely glowing.

\---

Tony's scarce over the next few days. It seems that every time Loki comes upon him or tries to find him, he's suddenly overly busy, cannot talk, needs to run to the side of what little of the Avengers still calls him their teammate. His eyes never once fully lock on Loki, and he can feel the lack of Tony's gaze on him like one in the desert, crawling towards that ever-elusive mirage of water. He feels like a ghost, a wraith, wandering the halls of the Mansion without any real purpose, feeling empty, keeping careful to avoid Tony's haunts. He grapples with one of a thousand questions at any given moment, questioning himself, his identity. His lover. Why he's still here. Why it hurts so much, to have Tony react just as he expected. 

After two days, Loki holes himself up in his room.

For a long time, he sits on the end of the queen-sized bed, the only thing of the furnishings that came with the room that he used. His legs crossed, his body clad in the black and green long-sleeved v-neck undershirt he preferred and dark pants and nothing else, he meditates. His mind wanders, and he lets it. 

It's been a rough few months for Tony Stark, Loki muses. With the rise of super-villains after his full-scale attack on New York City several years before, there had also been the rise of super-heroes. It was becoming impossible to ignore the rising numbers of mutants, impossible to pretend the newly formed so-called "X-Men", among other teams, still had no influence on the workings of the nation. The government, uncomfortable at the very conception of the Avengers, had become full-on obsessed with regulating and controlling the "special" populace. Tony, still influential in higher circles, had caught wind of a new bill that was quietly being written, one that promised to see the light of day as a fully fledged law. One that could potentially destroy peace in the States, or could unite the efforts of all super-humans and -heroes under it. He'd become obsessed with trying to influence the specifics of the bill, and had begged the Avengers to join him.

_"Police officers, firefighters, military personnel - we require all these people to be formally trained," Tony argued to his teammates. "They have to wear a badge, they have to be accountable for their actions. We should have the same. We should head the cause. Get everyone united."_

_"You have_ got _to be joking," Natasha snorted. "You honestly expect the Avengers to be the poster children for this?"_

_"She has a point," Steve murmured. "This is unconstitutional. Requiring every super-hero and mutant to register in a public base could be disastrous."_

_"It wouldn't be public," Tony replied. "It'd be private, known only to the government."_

_"And what if they decide to round us all up?" Clint muttered, arms crossed, staring at the table._

_"Not to mention, private lists only the government can see? No one would ever think to hack that," Natasha scoffed._

_"I won't stand for this, Tony," Steve intoned quietly. "I can't. This is invasion of privacy on an inexcusable level. These are not the values I fight for."_

The Mansion was the emptiest it'd ever been. Even with the new members, the rookies and the trainees, the Avengers seemed incomplete without Captain America at the helm. Natasha and Clint stayed only because Nick Fury had requested they keep an eye on the situation for SHIELD, and they didn't keep it a secret that, otherwise, they would have left. Bruce was the only one who genuinely agreed with Tony, though he had his own reservations. 

Tony believed he was helping them all. That keeping everyone safely trained and identified was the only way to stop a massive civil war, to keep both the heroes and the humans safe. He truly believed that sacrificing one perk to the job was the only way they could survive, but the loss of Steve, of Captain fucking America, had been hard on him. He'd been eating and sleeping even less frequently than before, and Loki had tried his damndest to keep Tony afloat, but he had never been the best of caretakers.

Loki shifts uneasily. This line of thought is only distracting him, furthering his confused thoughts. He takes in a deep breath and closes his eyes.

A green-eyed woman watches an angry Nick Fury storm, ranting about the Goddamn imbeciles in Washington and their Goddamn pointless Goddamn laws and did they realize just what a can of worms they were trying to open, past where she sits at his desk, but is gone when he turns, suddenly aware of another presence in the formerly empty room. 

Steve Roger's reflection raises an eyebrow as he shaves his face in the small, seedy hotel bathroom. He looks damn tired, almost moreso than Tony. Steve squints at the mirror suddenly, and his reflection obeys, reverting to normal again before he can ponder the change. 

Bruce Banner stares at the screen of his laptop, murmuring to JARVIS and saving his latest changes to a design he was helping Tony tighten. He's suddenly startled when the screen momentarily flashes black and he can see the Hulk staring back at him in the reflection just over his shoulder, but as he whips around to look behind him, it disappears.

A green fly on the wall watches Clint Barton practice his hand-to-hand with Natasha Romanov with a bored eye. It listens as they rest momentarily, discussing the newest changes in the law in naught but the barest terms. It leaves as they share a small, passionate, candid kiss. 

Not once does he allow himself to watch Tony. He refuses, stubbornly, even knowing Tony would never notice him.

As the Avengers begin to sleep or switch patrol shifts, as the city quiets just slightly, Loki turns his gaze inward. He looks at himself, at who he considers himself to be. He lets himself melt into his own thoughts.

" _Why_ did _you tell him?_ "

The voice is a twisted whisper, a form of his own. Loki's eyes flutter open. He's sitting in the center of a black void, his knees to his chest, his head resting on his arms, folded over his knees. There's a presence behind him, he can feel it. He notices belatedly that he's still only wearing his undershirt and pants, and briefly wonders, out of all the clothing he has ever owned, he chose such simple wear in his own mind's eye. 

"I thought he might understand," he replies quietly, and the voice snickers.

" _It seemed to me he understood it perfectly._ " 

The figure steps into his line of vision; it looks just like him, but in full Asgardian armor, complete with gold pieces and horned helmet. In one hand glows his long-abandoned curved staff, at full length. The specter holds it with ease. Its eyes are black voids, and as it regards him, Loki is chilled, feeling as if it can see directly through him.

"I thought he might be different," Loki spits. "That he might see something different in it."

" _Why?_ " hisses his doppleganger, walking around him, almost like a predator stalking its prey. " _Everyone reacts the same._ "

"He sees so much in me," Loki whispers, and his arms tighten. He wants to curl further into a ball and disappear, melt away from his wicked self. "I had no reason to expect this would be different."

" _You thought he might find you.. beautiful? Regal?_ " Another wicked, twisted laugh. Loki feels cold breath on his neck, the figure leaning over him. " _Did you expect he would fill the void your_ father _left?_ "

Loki turns, swiping at the figure, but it's gone. More laughter. Loki hisses, baring his teeth, eyes darting around the darkness for a sign of it. Of himself. Of the side of him that has been silent for the past few weeks, lulled into nonexistence by Tony's soft hands, passionate kisses, loving murmurs. Without him, without Tony, Loki's right back to where he began: lost, alone, hateful. Hurt. Torn.

"He's given me no reason to expect otherwise," Loki breathes, furious, into the void. 

" _Love,_ " the voice murmurs, and Loki turns again, facing it. His shadow stands before him, still resplendent in green and gold, but it's eyes glow red, it's skin blue. Every word it speaks, frost bleeds from his lips, like breath in cold air. " _You expected love to erase the truth of your monstrosity._ "

"He insisted." Loki stands uneasily, facing his dark reflection. "He told me I was no monster. He said I was deserving of his attention, that I could no more frighten or disgust him than he could of me."

" _Well,_ " the specter whispers. " _If those were his words, he could not possibly renege, nor could he be speaking falsely. He is gone from your side out of his undying love for you, who could not disturb him in any form?_ " It smiles, a wide, toothy, horrible grimace, sharp white teeth mocking Loki. It strikes, grabbing him by the face, lifting him. " _Surely he could love you, the Jotun bastard, caught between the realms. He's insisted as much; surely it must be true._ "

"He's been under so much pressure," Loki whispers in return, and he can feel tears welling up in his eyes. His hands grip the shadow's wrist, fingernails digging as best they can into hard skin, but he doesn't resist, he doesn't struggle. "His adverse reaction was born only of exhaustion and rising hostilities. He meant no harm."

" _Oh yes,_ " the shadow laughs. " _Oh, that must have been it, exactly. Please,_ do _tell me another story. I do so love such fiction._ "

Loki's eyes snap open again, focusing on the wall across from the bed he's still perched on, breathing heavily. He swears he can hear the soft, mocking laughter just behind him, feel the cool breath on his neck.

He tears from his room, stalking down the hall. He has to prove it wrong. He knows he can. He knows Tony doesn't find him a monster, he just needs the proof. Loki doesn't need to ask JARVIS where Tony is; even without reaching out with his magic, he can feel the energy of the arc reactor in his lover's chest, and he wastes no time as he works his way down to the lab.

"Tony," he breathes, his voice hoarse, as he strides into the lab. He realizes only now that he's sweating, heart thumping painfully in his chest. 

"Yeah, babe," Tony replies, distracted. He's working on the glove again, focused on one joint, leaning close to it with a determined look in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Look at me," Loki says, and he can't keep the need out of his voice, shadowed with self-loathing and desperation. Tony's eyes snap up, focusing on something over the glove, something non-existent, and his lips fall open ever so slightly as he thinks furiously. "Please," Loki whispers.

Tony glances at him after a moment. "What's the matter, baby?" he murmurs, and the relief that Loki is back in his normal form is palpable in his gaze. He looks tense. Loki feels his shoulders lock up.

"I need you to tell me the truth," he hisses, and he stalks forward, the glamour spell Odin had imprinted upon him stripping itself off his skin, the result of years of labored practice, like ashes from a fire. "What do I look like?" His voice is hungry, desperate, and from the look on Tony's face, he can tell. "How do you see me? What do you see before you?"

 _Am I a monster?_ he's asking, and Tony can hear the underlying question, see it in his eyes.

"Loki," Tony says uneasily, startled at Loki's quickly approaching form. "I'm in the middle of something, I-"

"I don't care," Loki hisses, his voice raising in volume and intensity, and he grabs Tony's wrist, grips it tightly. He breathes frost without realizing it, his fingers going frigid on Tony's skin. The fear on Tony's face is disheartening and painful, and his grip only tightens as Tony tries to pull away. "I need this. I need to hear you tell me how you see me."

"Just relax," Tony whispers, his eyes wide. "Just... c'mon, baby, just breathe."

"You don't lie to me. You've never lied to me," Loki hisses. "You are the only person whose opinion matters to me. I need to know what it is, whatever it may be."

Tony's silent, his lips moving without words, eyes darting from Loki's desperate, hungry eyes to the fingers burning themselves into his flesh and back again. Loki snarls, releasing Tony with a vicious twist. 

"Nothing," Loki spits. "I come to you desperate and needy and wanting, and you give me _nothing_."

"I-" He can practically see Tony scrabbling for words in his eyes. "It's- I've been busy, and I wasn't really thinking, I guess, and I-"

Loki doesn't hear the rest of his words. He can only hear the blood rushing in his ears. His entire body is tense.

" _His work has always and will ever be the more important,_ " nags the shadow in his ear.

Loki's sudden onset of rage combined with already stunning reflexes results in a physical reaction so fast that, at first, even he is as surprised at his fingers tightly holding Tony's jaw, even he is shocked at the force with which he throws his lover. Tony slides across a counter, tools and projects scattering wildly. He hits the floor hard and groans; Loki is on him before he can get back to his feet, grabbing his shirt and lifting him again, throwing him again.

"I sacrifice _everything_ ," he snarls, stalking towards Tony as he scrambles to his feet, diving for the bracelet on the floor nearest him. The other one's missing, having skittered off when Loki swept the counter with him, and he desperately looks around. "I give you _everything_ , and in return receive _nothing_."

"Loki," Tony starts, but is cut off with his own cry as Loki grabs a fistful of his hair, lifting him, one hand lit with a cruel, icy-blue light. "Wait," he gasps.

"I'm finished waiting," Loki snaps. Tony kicks his chest, forcing them apart; Loki staggers, dropping Tony, who falls into an unbalanced crouch, turns on his heel. He almost falls over, hands on the floor, pushing himself up desperately. 

" _Sir?_ " prompts JARVIS.

"Just-" Tony replies, but is rudely interrupted by Loki's hand on the back of his shirt, yanking him back viciously. "Arm! Now!"

With only one bracelet, Tony can only call so much of the Iron Man to his body. The glove flips up from the other side of the counter, snapping itself (painfully; he cries out as it clips his arm, due to his moving) to his body. He twists in Loki's grasp as fast as he can, and as he fires a repulsor blast, Loki punches him with a fist lined with ice.

They separate again; Loki hits a counter and Tony hits the wall, a shout tearing itself from him from the pain. Loki stands, breathing heavily, and walks slowly to where Tony's slumped, dazed. His arm is bleeding under the repulsor glove, and, from the look of the wall, his head is bleeding just a bit, too. He doesn't offer much resistance as Loki pulls him up, fingers bruising Tony where his fingers grip his arms, and slams him against the wall, face level with his own.

"I needed you," Loki hisses. Tony regards him with the calm demeanor of someone not quite yet capable of reacting in a timely manner. "I _needed_ you as badly as they do, and you _ignored_ me. You ran. You hid. You _feared me,_ after all your gilded promises to the contrary."

"Baby, please," Tony whispers, the fog over his eyes clearing, fear filling them again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I swore to myself not to be used again," Loki murmurs. He can feel his hands freezing again, feel Tony tensing and squirming with pain as he burns his hands into the man's skin. "What's the matter, dearest? Silver tongue turned to lead?"

Tony struggles, kicks up at him, tries to shoot another damn repulsor blast, but Loki holds him fast against the wall. He pulls Tony to him, turns and slams him against the counter; his hand grips Tony's wrist as it swings up, firing. The blast hits the ceiling above them simultaneously as Loki freezes the glove solid, punctuating the movement with a quick twist and the sick, horrifying crack of Tony's wrist mixed with the wrenching sound of metal. He gasps, howls, body jerking up in pain. 

"I saw it in your eyes." Loki throws Tony again, now against the base of a counter, where it meets the floor. Loki descends on him again, falling to his knees and straddling Tony's body, lifting the man's face to his own. "I _saw it!_ " he screams, voice cracking, slamming Tony against the counter. "I _watched_ you _brand_ me _monster!_ " 

He hits Tony hard in the face, feels his nose break, pulls his fist back as blood begins to pour down his face, down his lips. It drips onto his shirt, lazily, in thick globs. Tony's gasping, panting hard, small moans of pain leaving him. 

"Pity," Loki spits. "Uncertainty." Tony's eyes flutter, trying to stay open, on him. "Desperation, discomfort. _Fear._ It was all _there,_ my _beloved._ "

"Please," Tony whispers, voice thick with pain. He's slurring. "Please, don't," he whimpers.

Loki snarls into his face, breathing hard, and he lifts Tony's body from the counter, preparing to slam him as hard as he can against it again, ready to break his skull open and watch the light leave his eyes-

Tony's eyes, desperate and pained, are filling with tears. He can feel it. He senses it. He's about to die, and it's all there in the look he's fixed on Loki. Sadness. Desperation. Desolation. It catches Loki off-guard. He stops breathing for a half-second, shuddering. 

"Don't kill me," Tony murmurs, barely able to keep his voice above a whisper. "Please, Loki."

Loki's hands begin to shake. He throws Tony back down, growling and standing in one swift movement, and turns away. He can feel the tell-tale sting of tears in his own eyes, and he lets out a guttural noise of hatred, of pain, of every single fucking thing Tony has ever made him feel and how desperately it hurts now that he can feel it all slipping through his fingers. He stalks away from Tony, laying against the counter, his face bleeding profusely, then faces him again. 

He looks so pathetic, there, crumpled and broken. He looks so small. Tears slide down his cheeks, his shirt is heavy with blood, his arc reactor barely able through it. His arm is mangled, a mix of twisted metal and the slightest hint of bone. He looks so _sad,_ and truly, utterly alone. 

"And why shouldn't I?" Loki asks quietly, kneeling in front of Tony, who regards him as best he can through heavy lids.

"I don't know," Tony chokes. "I just... just thought it'd be more ...thought it'd be for a reason," he murmurs, barely able to form the words."

"Nothing," Loki hisses in reply, "you ever do will change the fact that you will die, horribly, utterly alone."

Tony says nothing. There's only the muffled noise of a sob under his pain-heavy breathing.

"I may not take your life, Tony Stark," Loki whispers, "but I _will_ take your heart."

It's easy enough to twist the arc reactor out of his chest; months ago, Tony had trusted him with the knowledge he needed to remove or replace it. He'd held the glowing reactor in his hand in the dark, and Tony had kissed him deeply. _"You know, you're holding my heart there,"_ he'd said. _"That's kind of a big thing for me."_

Loki watches as Tony's eyes widen in shock, disbelief. His body shakes with one loud, sudden gasp, the effect of so much energy suddenly draining from his battered body. Loki watches his face intensely, his lips trying to form silent words, his chest shuddering.

"We will meet again, Tony Stark," Loki murmurs, standing, turning the reactor over in his hand. His dark skin looks black with the bright blue light illuminating it. He cradles it in his hands, listening to Tony wheeze. Carefully, ever carefully, he leans over Tony, reverently placing the reactor on the counter directly above Tony's head. "Next time, I may not be so kind." He cocks his head, regarding his bloody blue skin, and grimaces. "A shame, knowing a hideous visage such as this will be your last memory of myself as your lover."

He's gone the next second, leaving Tony where he lays, weakly trying to leverage himself up far enough with one arm to grab the reactor. He leaves only the smell of snow.


End file.
